Fire Risk Assessments
If you own, manage or operate a business, you need to comply with fire safety law. The main law is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, often referred to as the Fire Safety Order. It applies across England and Wales and came into force on 1 October 2006.
What is a Fire Risk Assessment?
A fire risk assessment is a careful review of your premises and the people who use them from a fire prevention perspective. It is about understanding the potential fire risks and improving your fire safety precautions to help keep people safe.
Why Do It?
A fire risk assessment is a legal requirement. If you are responsible for a building, such as an employer, owner or occupier of premises that are not a single private dwelling, you must ensure that a suitably competent person carries out a fire risk assessment.
It is your duty to identify fire risks and hazards within the premises and take appropriate action.
In addition, if five or more people work at your premises, or your business has a licence under an enactment in force, your fire risk assessment must be recorded in writing.
You should also review your fire risk assessment regularly and whenever significant changes are made that could affect it. This is not only a legal requirement, but also good business practice, as many businesses do not recover after a fire. Effective fire prevention begins with properly understanding the risks.
Can I Go to Prison for Not Doing a Fire Risk Assessment?
If you fail to meet your legal duties to keep people safe, you could be fined and may even face imprisonment. There does not need to have been a fire for prosecution to take place.
How to Do a Fire Risk Assessment
Broadly speaking, fire risk assessments are carried out in five key steps:
- Identify the fire hazards.
- Identify the people at risk.
- Evaluate, remove or reduce the risks.
- Record your findings, prepare an emergency plan and provide training.
- Review and update the fire risk assessment regularly.
Who Checks It?
Tier One Fire Consultants will check fire safety in premises as part of its duty to keep people safe from fire. If your premises are not safe, or you have not completed a fire risk assessment, you may be fined. If the Brigade believes people are at serious risk, they may even close your business until it is made safe for employees and members of the public.
Who Should Carry Out My Fire Risk Assessment?
It is important that the person carrying out the fire risk assessment is competent. There are two principal ways in which competence can be demonstrated:
- Professional Body Registration schemes such as the IFSM Fire Risk Assessor Register
- Certification by a Certification Body that is UKAS accredited for the activity, such as BAFE SP205
The competence of a company to deliver fire risk assessments can also be demonstrated through third-party certification by a UKAS-accredited Certification Body.
As a duty holder, you do not need to be an expert in registration and certification schemes, but it is helpful to understand how they work.
A scheme identifies what needs to be assessed and what methods of assessment are used. There are a number of schemes relating to fire risk assessment, including:
- A company scheme, operated by a certification body, which assesses the competence of personnel and the management systems within the company
- A professional body scheme, operated by a professional body, which is concerned with the competence of the individual rather than the company
All schemes maintain a register listing the individuals or companies that have been assessed as meeting the scheme requirements.
Certification Bodies assess the fire risk assessor, whether individual or company, against the requirements of a scheme.
The role of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is to accredit third-party Certification Bodies for the certification work they carry out. UKAS is the national accreditation body recognised by the Government for this purpose. It assesses Certification Bodies against internationally agreed standards to confirm that they are correctly assessing against scheme requirements.
Large Complex Business
If your business is larger or more complex, you should contact an expert for assistance. The London Fire Brigade’s role is to ensure that you have carried out an appropriate assessment, but they do not provide an assessment service themselves.
SME or Smaller Organisation
If your business or organisation is relatively small and your fire risks are not complex, it may be possible to carry out the assessment yourself. Guidance is available on the Gov.uk website, and a downloadable Word document can also be provided to help support you.
What Are My Responsibilities?
Very simply, you must make sure that:
- Your premises meet the required fire safety standards.
- Employees are provided with adequate fire safety training.
What About Fire Risk Assessments?
By law, if you are responsible for commercial premises, you must ensure that a fire risk assessment has been completed by a competent person. It is mandatory to carry out a detailed assessment identifying the risks and hazards within the premises.
The assessment must be recorded if you employ five or more people.
The responsible person for the premises is also required to:
- Consider who may be especially at risk
- Eliminate or reduce the risk of fire as far as is reasonably practicable
- Provide general fire precautions to deal with any risk
- Take additional measures where flammable or explosive materials are used or stored
- Create a plan to deal with any emergency and, where necessary, record the findings
- Maintain general fire precautions and facilities provided for use by firefighters
- Keep the findings of the fire risk assessment under regular review